Activated Sludge Microbial Oil Technology - an Overview

Enhancement and extraction of oil from microbial consortia of waste activated sludge generated by wastewater treatment facilities have been studied in the recent decade with the potential as viable platform for organic waste-to-biofuels and organic waste-to-chemicals transformation. The fundamental principles of this technology emulate the principles of single cell oil technology and resource recovery from wastewater treatment. This work is a literature review summary of the various key aspects of activated sludge microbial oil technology. The technology was established in 2005 through a project on biodiesel and value-added chemicals extraction from wastewater sludges. Afterwards, the science of single cell oil was adopted into the technology to enhance the neutral lipid content of activated sludge. Using sugars as model substrates (carbon source), researchers established that activated sludge lipid accumulation has a similar bioprocess kinetics as that of a single cell lipid accumulation. More studies are being done to reduce the cost of carbon source substrates.